Museums in focus video transcript
[Barry] Hello I'm Barry Macaulay senior manager, RNIB Northern
Ireland and I'm responsible for the Museums in Focus project.
Today we're at the launch of the Sense of the Past Exhibition and
the book at Burnavon Arts and Cultural Centre.
The aim of Museums in Focus is basically to make the museum
experience accessible and meaningful for blind and partially
sighted people.
In the past, blind people tended to stay away from museums
because everything was visual; there was nothing really to interest
them or to excite them and there was no way of them getting
information other than maybe someone going with them and telling
them what was in the exhibition.
Part of the Museums in Focus project is before the exhibition
comes to each museum we would send our staff out to do visual
awareness training to the staff of the museums.
[Kate] My name's Kate, Kate Keys. I'm the marketing
officer here at the Burnavon Arts Centre. We learnt lots this
morning.
It's been really useful for me as a marketing officer to learn about
the different things around communication and it's been really
good for box-office to learn about guiding because obviously when
people are coming in and out they're the ones that are front line
and they need to be able to know exactly what do when somebody
does come in.
The PenFriend is amazing, I've never seen it in operation at all.
We didn't know it existed and it was something that we could use.
[Barry] PenFriend's a very simple, cheap way of making any
exhibit accessible. PenFriends were originally intended as a
labelling device for food so the blind or partially sighted person
would record the type of product and then they would put the bar
code onto the tin and they would then be able to read it with the
PenFriend and know what's in their cupboard.
We decided why can't we use this for other things like art galleries,
museums and were able to adapt it, so you can now read on to a
little bar code, the blind person gets the Pen Friend, when they
trigger that little bar code, it speaks to them and it reads the whole
exhibition out to them so really it means it's an audio description of
the exhibition.
[Elaine] Hello I'm Elaine Kelly, aged 39 and I've got macular
dystrophy. Pen Friend, I think is absolutely fantastic, it gives me
the independence I can go around freely and be able to listen to
what's been explained, instead of feeling embarrassed asking for
help all the time.
[Chris] My name is Chris Bailey I'm the director of the Northern
Ireland Museums Council. Now the nice thing about the
Exhibition is that we have that lovely bit of technology that allows
all of us to look at things in a different way to appreciate that you
can present and interpret things in a different way, so there in a
nutshell is why we as an organisation became involved in the
catalysing of the exhibition.
[Kate] One of the goals for us at the centre is to make sure that
anybody who's coming in can access anything the same way as
anybody else can, and that just makes it so much simpler and so
much easier.
[Barry] So if anyone wants to hear any more about the sense of
the past exhibition or the Museums in
Focus project:
[We see the end screen with the following words which Barry
is heard speaking: You just can contact us at the RNIB Belfast
office that's 028 9032 9373 or you can visit our website
rnib.org.uk/museumsinfocus]
[Barry] I'd like to thank the Heritage Lottery Fund for not only
funding the Sense of the Past exhibition but also funding the
Museums in Focus project.
[Voiceover] RNIB Northern Ireland. Supporting people with sight
loss.
END